Polls open in Gorton and Denton byelection amid three-way battle between Greens, Labour and Reform
The polls have opened in the three-way battle for Gorton and Denton in south-east Manchester in one of the most unpredictable byelections in years.The Green party leader Zack Polanski said his party was “neck and neck” with Reform UK to overturn Labour’s 13,000-vote majority, and that Labour will need to “search their conscience” if Reform UK wins.Keir Starmer’s party has targeted left-leaning voters in the Greater Manchester seat with claims that only Labour can see off Nigel Farage’s Reform, saying that a vote for the Greens was “in effect, a vote for Reform”.Labour’s strategy of claiming the Greens cannot win has echoes of the disastrous Caerphilly byelection in October, which the party lost to Plaid Cymru despite telling voters repeatedly: “Only Labour can beat Reform.”Speaking ahead of polls opening at 7am on Thursday, Polanski accused Labour of deliberately splitting the left vote because a Green victory would be “existential” for Starmer.
“It’s looking neck and neck between the Green party and Reform,” he said.“I don’t think Labour are in this race at all – they’ve known that for a long time.”Polanski, who chose not to stand in the constituency despite growing up in Manchester, said the party’s internal data suggested it was fractionally behind Reform, with Labour “way, way behind”.“The Labour party know that the Green party are on track to win this election and I think that they’re doing everything they can to try and split the vote,” he said.“My biggest fear is a scenario where Reform win by a handful of votes because Labour took a small percentage of the vote but it was just enough to stop the Green party from winning.
”A split vote on the left allowed Reform to win the Runcorn and Helsby byelection last May by six votes.Labour is defending a 13,413-vote majority in Gorton and Denton where nearly 80% of voters backed a party on the left at the 2024 election.The result will be declared at about 4am on Friday.Angeliki Stogia, a Labour councillor, was selected as the candidate for Starmer’s party after Andy Burnham was prevented from standing.The academic turned GB News presenter Matt Goodwin – who has faced criticism for his comments on women, Muslims and British citizenship – is standing for Reform UK.
Hannah Spencer, a Trafford councillor and plumber by trade, is the Green party candidate.Prof Will Jennings, of the University of Southampton, said the contest was too close to call and that in Britain’s new fragmented politics “anything can happen”.He said a Labour defeat would be “terminal” for No 10’s strategy to try to appeal to right-leaning voters in a way that alienates its core progressive supporters.“It would be a symbol of the failure of that strategy and the end point for it,” said Jennings.“The worst-case scenario for Labour is coming third behind Reform and the Greens, not least because of the decision to stop Andy Burnham from standing.
”A Labour victory would “staunch that sense of inevitability of the end of Starmer”, he added, and potentially mark a turning point for a government eight points behind Reform in the polls and facing a resurgent Green party.However, any relief for Starmer would be short-lived as Labour is expected to suffer heavy losses when voters across England, Scotland and Wales go to the polls in the local and devolved elections in 10 weeks.On a visit to the constituency on Monday, Starmer described the Greens’ plan to legalise drugs as “disgusting” and claimed it would turn parks and playgrounds into “crack dens”.Polanski said Starmer’s visit “felt very much like spoiler behaviour” because it suggested Labour was confident of winning when, he claimed, that was not the case.“I think the Labour party will have to search their conscience if they’ve allowed the Reform party to win.
”Polanski accused Labour of sinking to “a new low” with an attack advert on social media showing a green syringe alongside the words: “Heroin, crack cocaine, spice,Green party says YES,”“It’s the last desperate gasp of a Keir Starmer Labour government,” the Green party leader said,The byelection was triggered by the resignation of Andrew Gwynne on health grounds in January,The former MP was under investigation by parliament for offensive messages he sent in a WhatsApp group of local Labour figures.
Twenty-year-old to testify at US trial about harm from social media addiction
For the first time, a jury will hear testimony this week from a young woman who alleges social media companies intentionally create addictive products, harming children. The witness taking the stand, known by her initials KGM, is the lead plaintiff in an expansive lawsuit against Meta – which owns Instagram and Facebook – and YouTube currently at trial in Los Angeles.KGM, who is now 20, alleges that she became addicted to social media apps before she was 10 and would spend hours every day scrolling through photos and videos. This led to years of mental health issues, according to her lawyers and court documents.KGM is expected to testify about how her constant use of social media led to depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia
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Meta’s AI sending ‘junk’ tips to DoJ, US child abuse investigators say
Meta’s use of artificial intelligence software to moderate its social media platforms is generating large volumes of useless reports about cases of child sexual abuse, which are draining resources and hindering investigations, said officers from the US Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforce.“We get a lot of tips from Meta that are just kind of junk,” Benjamin Zwiebel, a special agent with the ICAC taskforce in New Mexico, said last week during his testimony in the state’s trial against Meta. The state’s attorney general alleges the company’s platforms are putting profits over child safety. Meta disputes these allegations, citing changes it has introduced on its platforms, such as teen accounts with default protections. The ICAC taskforce is a nationwide network of law enforcement agencies coordinated with the US Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute online child exploitation and abuse cases
Treasury calls in Blair thinktank to advise on using AI across public services
Ministers have called in Tony Blair’s thinktank and private tech companies to guide them on deploying AI across the UK government in a move campaigners compared to “inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse”.James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chair of IBM and senior executives at AI companies including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former communications adviser at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.“These people are exactly who can help us create change across the public sector – giving us the hard truths on our approach to AI and advising where we need to prioritise our investment to support real efficiencies,” said Murray, who added that their advice will “feed into efficiency processes ahead of the next spending review”.The move came after the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, last month said the government’s goal was to “make Britain the fastest AI adoption country in the G7”.The Treasury said it showed it was committing “to private sector engagement on the deployment of artificial intelligence across the public sector so it can improve efficiency and productivity”
Facial recognition error prompts police to arrest Asian man for burglary 100 miles away
Police arrested a man for a burglary in a city he had never visited after face scanning software deployed across the UK confused him with another person of south Asian heritage.Alvi Choudhury, 26, a software engineer, was working at the home he shares with his parents in Southampton in January when police knocked on his door, handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am.Thames Valley police had used automated facial recognition software which matched him with footage of a suspect of a £3,000 burglary 100 miles away in Milton Keynes, according to documents shared with the Guardian by Liberty Investigates.But the CCTV footage showed a noticeably younger man with different features apart from similar curly hair, said Choudhury, who was left confused about why he had been arrested.“I was very angry, because the kid looked about 10 years younger than me,” said Choudhury, who wears a beard
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